A word of solidarity with Lebanese blogger Imad Bazzi

A journalist asked me once: “why do you blog?” without thinking too much, I sipped a bit of my tea and told her: “because it was and still the only way to survive this non-sense”, it was couple of months ago when I started this blog, September 2012 at Damascus, Syria as a way to survive the war, writing has been a major tool in our Arab World to avoid going insane, this is why “Prisons Literature” flourished in the region in the last 50 years and so did blogging in the last, well, I cant really tell. this conversation took place at T-Marbouta, a Lebanese vibrant café, the place where I think I crossed once the Lebanese blogger Imad Bazzi

I read some of his blog posts every once in a while and laughed a lot when I saw for the first time the “disclaimer” of his blog Trella: “this blog is not suitable for nationalists, sectarians, and lovers of regimes and military”

Imad blogged about Lebanon, its politics and politicians, the continuously violated human rights there and did this for very long time. Started back in 1998 as the first-ever blog in Lebanon, Trella gained a lot of attention and won many prizes, such as: Recognition, Most Influential Blogger in the Mediterranean.

Shockingly, I came to realize via common friends’ facebook accounts that Imad is called for interrogation tomorrow 13 March 2014 at Beirut, later on Al-Modon online paper explained in details that: “Imad was called to the office of cyber-crimes and protection of copyrights without mentioning the reason behind the call” as Imad told the paper. He suggested that his blog “The mustache of the minister (AR) is the reason for calling me in” in that post he wrote about an incident with bodyguards of one Lebanise minister over a traffic light in Beirut.

It’s important to mention that Imad was arrested years ago at the beginning of his blogging activism, according to the description of the blog provided here.

Freedom of expression was never respected in Lebanon and so the security and safety of bloggers, activists, journalists and writers. The Lebanese government should be held accountable for any out-of-law procedures taken against Imad who was excising his rights of expression as a citizen of a country called Lebanon.

In solidarity with Imad and all the fighters for our basic rights in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and the universe.